I leave the frontage road and cross the line
Into Wisconsin. There's a row of woods
Dividing sky from field, and in the weave
Of limb and stem, a rib of pink recedes.

It's warm inside the car. The wind is there
Against the doors. The maple leaves are loose.
I move beneath another line of geese,
Impelled, they bank and rise above the trees.

I think of Bix. His sound is here with me.
I drive, he strikes his notes the way these late
Leaves fall, cutoff, wind caught, a flash of gold.
The trees press close. The narrow road unfolds

As loamy prairie flats of corn give way
To teardrops of hill-slope. It was the ice
That shaped this zone with glaciers like slow trains
Scooping out rigid stone into moraines

As markers that mapped drift. I crest the ridge
And coast downhill to the four-way below.
Pressing the brakes, I slow, a yellow light
Goes on and off above the junction, night

One hour away. Streetlamps are lit along
The strip of town; a service station shut,
a mean, curbside barroom-where do I go?
A moon-eyed dairy truck behind me grows.

I pull beside the curb and let him pass,
His taillights, mottled, disembodied, coat
The road in red. I turn the music down,
And look at that photo of Bix-thumbed, brown--

That I keep on the dashboard. His face rides
The last of dusk inside the windshield's glare.
Absent of breath, he points a paper horn
to paper lips-my guide among the corn.

Across the street a set of weedy tracks
Run past the last corner of town. A white
grain elevator sits shut. Mounds of spilled
corn dot the rutted lot, no silo left to fill.

A man, unsteady, heaves out of the bar.
Here's a place, good as any, to renege.
Bix grins and says, "you go on in and have one."
Ticking, pinging, the car cools like a gun.

A small notebook waits in my back pocket
For words for things, but there're none forthcoming.
I pull it out and drop it on the seat.
Its leaves are wire-bound, tracked with fretful feet,

Each foot broken by slashes of blue ink.
I pick it up and find the page that says
In "Clarinet Marmalade," Bix sings gin;
First shot, throat hot, I think I must be him,

Or like him; cut away and loosed from home
And those shame-hazy rooms--I'd change my hair,
Lacquer it back, with new brown eyes ablaze,
While gift wrapped laurels, filigreed with praise,

Fell from the sky-like Phaeton's wish come true.
The delight he must have felt, when, at last,
Just as night was lifting, the sun's pink reins
Rose to his hands. Did he hoist some Champaign,

To toast the bitter-sweetness of his dreams?
Or did he think things would be easier
If people knew he was of God adored?

I put it down.

Gasoline ghosts poured from a dirty cup.

The season after my child's enigmas were pointed out to me, the month after I completed my first quarter of design school, the week after Stuart's third Christmas, the day after sex with my husband was inspired by a twinge of ovulation in my side (although we've been trying that for a year without result,) the hour after eating lunch with my son, I am sitting at my kitchen table. He climbs into my lap for a snuggle and we both look south out the window, into our backyard and the park that starts on the other side of our alley. In summer, our two mulberry trees enclose our yard in walls of green, their branches almost touching above the path that curves to the back gate. Now naked, they display their geometry. The male is upright, lofting equations of branches that diverge into lattice, then mesh, then fade into a brown fringe of earth against the gray quilted sky. The shorter female is dome-shaped, gesturing up from her trunk then drooping, limbs twisted like a Martha Graham dancer's. All bare trees remind me of 3-D computer illustrations of fractal logic. I've titled these: Look at me! and This is happening here.

Our first summer here-Stuart's first summer of walking-he trotted over every inch of the park, head down, kicking up clouds of orange dust across the three softball infields as I followed. I was grateful for exercise and the ten pounds I lost, although it was only a small portion of weight I'd gained since college. The ten pounds were not noticeable to others, but I felt stronger, like I was recovering from the pregnancy and his infancy. When he wore me out, I would carry him home to our yard and let him wander safely enclosed in chain link. Then when he heard a train approaching, he'd fling himself back to the gate and whine until I lifted him to see over the roof of the strip mall on Clark Street as the diesel engines and double-decker commuter cars rumbled north or south, downtown or to the suburbs. This past summer, we left a plastic footstool inside the gate for him, so he wouldn't need to be lifted to watch his trains.

Inside at the kitchen table, I decide to ask him a question.

"You know, bunny, if you would talk more you could ask for things and Mommy and Daddy would get them for you. You could tell me that you wanted to eat or play, or if you wanted to go somewhere, or what video you wanted to watch. You could tell me how you feel, or where you got hurt. Will you do that?"

No response. He keeps looking out the window.

"If you would talk more you'd be happier. Your life would be easier. You could talk to your teachers and your friends and have more fun."

No reply. I can be patient. Is he thinking about trees and fences? Listening for a train? Wondering where all the green went? Does he wish we had snow? I have many questions for him, but this is the most important.

"So, do you think you'll talk more, soon?"

For a moment his face remains blank. Then, with pursed lips, he shakes his head vigorously.

He's never done that before. The words no and yes are not in his vocabulary. But this once, he's given me an answer. On the evidence of that gesture, I will tell the various speech pathologists, psychologists, social workers, educators who will evaluate him, and the one neurologist who will examine him over the next six months that, yes, of course, he occasionally shakes his head for no.

He will never do it again.

That's what they get for asking me.

I will be asked if he understands the word no and think it's like being asked if I enforce the law of gravity in my home. How could any child not understand a word that he hears dozens of times every day? I won't understand what "he does not understand" means for well over a year.

I will be asked why my son can't high five and have to explain that it's not his fault: his parents are not high five-ing people.

I will be advised to teach him to eat with a spoon by placing his hand around the spoon handle and my hand over his, guiding the spoon into the ice cream, then into his mouth. I will do it while feeling like I'm helping him to cheat on his pre-school achievement tests. Does it count if he doesn't pick it up on his own? I will need to use my free hand to keep his free hand out of the ice cream, which leaves no hands to hold the bowl still. I will buy heavier bowls and softer ice cream.

Arnell and I will be tested for infertility; minor problems will be found. We will be slow to seek treatment.

One evaluator will be disappointed when she asks me for Stuart's Apgar score to fill the blank on her medical history form. I will wonder if all other mothers of six-weeks-premature babies like Stuart remember this score of newborn vitality and predictor of outcomes. From one to ten. Infants vs.data points. The birthmarks of well-researched cohorts. Babies graph in a jiffy. One?-Well, we shouldn't have hoped for much! Ten?-Ah, we needn't have worried! But if anyone ever told me his number, it immediately dissolved in the surf of events: His shuddering gray totality, tethered by the umbilical cord and held in the doctor's wet, blood-flecked hands. My own voice croaking, "He's so big!" because I'd steeled myself to see a frail preemie, not this five-and-a-half pound, kicking contender. His first rasping inhalation and shrill sob turned his dusky chest to a rich red; the second wail spread the color to his face, arms, legs, then to finger tips and toes as we all watched in awe. The neonatal intensive care team examined him while chuckling in joy and wonder at his volume and strength. He didn't need them. They quickly returned him to Arnell and me, congratulating us. I believe that they never told me his number because he was off their chart, and obviously perfect. As he is now.

Downsize yourself;
take a few inches off
from below the knees.
Hobble across the office
and prostrate yourself
before yourself,
weeping uncontrollably.

Pull yourself together.
Walk to the water cooler
and splash your face
with sparkling spring water.
Develop a plan of action
and handpick your team,

comprised of you 
		      and you and you.
	You, you're in charge
of research and development;
distribution, you handle it;
and you write the checks.

Everyone gets two weeks paid
vacation, full medical
and dental. Your teeth
never had it so good!
So well-cleaned and whitened
you punch yourself in the mouth
and call an emergency
crisis management meeting.

Overtime will not be paid.

I admit, I am
yesterday I took
my One A Day 

	twice
and now 
it's tomorrow

First, keep the little guy
off the ground - he could easily
be trampled there, the way
people hurry nowadays; put him
on your shoulders, 
		        like a child
at a parade, but remember,
your average elf is above-average
smart, in any event smarter
than a preschooler, so never
condescend and make no assumptions
either. 
	   If you're driving, don't
buckle him into a baby seat,
he'll just slip through and out,
believe me, it's been known to happen;
clean out the glove box and put
a towel in there, they adore
enclosed spaces and he'll feel safe.

Never slip your elf into a pocket,
even if he asks, and he may ask,
there's no reinforcement and you
might forget he's there, 
			  it's been
known to happen, in fact it did
to a close personal friend of mine
and he still wakes up screaming,
I won't go into the details, this
is not the place or time for it.
Maybe later. 
		   One more thing,
your elf is your elf but
remember, he's his own elf too
so the best way to take care of him
is to give him some room,
if not his own room then a spot
behind the couch and near

the furnace grate; he'll love the heat
	and maybe use it to cook
his favorite foods, things
you or I could never imagine
as edible, but they are, they're delicious
but only if they're prepared a certain way.
He'll know what to do, he'll offer you a 
taste. Believe me, I know.

Where's the power gone? 
I had it, held it, like that baby bird, fallen from its nest
when I was ten. Don't mess with Texas,
little bird. I learned. But you wouldn't know it here.

A portrait in black and white, fit
for framed display at Sugar Land.
Christine always liked that smile. Took years
for me to make it seem easy. They can't
take that away.

I'll say this: the officers were professional.
Riding in the squad car, I waved
at people I know. They waved back. 
It was a nice day. The one who booked me, though. Pointed
		at the chair, said sit. Like a dog! Should
have reported him. Hardly said a word, between
typing up his report and taking me

to be photographed; wouldn't look me in the eye,
the way a real man would do. 
				 When it was time,
I politely asked for the handcuffs to be removed,
	which he did, after three requests.

My father, Charles, taught me always look your best.
So, I re-knotted my tie, combed my hair. 
There wasn't a mirror. 
Campaigning, I never used one. You improvise.

You see: not one hair out of place.
It's almost as if God were guiding my hand.

I pinned the House of Representatives badge
back on my lapel, where it belonged,
and smiled for the flash, thinking

about that first kiss with Christine, a hot
Corpus Christi night, too many years ago. 
The Nueces River, the ol' swimming hole. Her 
cheerleader colors, red and blue...
	"When the Nueces bird squawks" - We won the big 
game! The Fighting Wildcats - 

	Hail to Calallen
	to thee we'll be true
	your courage and honor
	will always come through.

Remember The Alamo? 1965. Bonfire, necking 
behind the bleachers, beer. We swore 
everlasting love. I gave her my ring. 
We did that, back then.

	You give inspiration
with standards so high...

This was before "The Exterminator," Redwood
Chemical, EPA, IRS, all that fuss - I'd still be there.
		"Hot Tub Tom."
Hate that name. The boozing, hangovers
and shame. All those stupid, stupid sins. 
They could have cost me everything.

But this ditch digger made it happen, 
threw himself on the mercy of Jesus Christ. 
Hallelujah! I felt his love fill me,
like a bird flying high into the sky
but also strength. You don't mess
with Texas. Jesus too was a carpenter

and it's no coincidence the hammer 
is the carpenter's most valuable tool.

"I can feel that!" I say very loudly and quickly. My eyes are squeezed shut in anticipation of more pain, but he stops and gives me another shot of painkiller - that's three. Thank God! I don't want to feel anything - it is frightening enough just to be here. This whole experience is surreal. I can't believe I am actually in a hospital strapped to an operating table having a lump removed from my neck. This happens to other people, not to me. I feel strangely calm, as this must be God's way of showing me what other people go through. But this isn't a dream or my imagination - it's real.

I can't see anything, I can only hear, as my face is covered with some kind of paper tent. When they put together this set up, I thought - OH COME ON - is this necessary? Now I know. They pass a gazillion things across your face, and something could be dropped. I don't think the doctor or the nurses want to see your face or the tears, and I really didn't want to see their exchanges either. This is horrifying in itself - I appreciate the privacy actually. Hooray for the paper tent! The doctor and nurses talk quietly in the surgical room, but I'm not asleep - I can hear them. The surgeon's beeper goes off on the desk across the room.

"Nurse, get that." Beep. Beep. She ignores him. What is she doing? Why isn't she saying anything? Beep. Beep. "Nurse, please answer my pager," he says into my ear. (At least I'm distracted from the digging in my neck … but she should respond for crying out loud.) Beep. Beep.

"Nurse!!" I want to scream, "Answer the pager already! Jeepers … what are you DOING??!" I am seriously irritated, hurting, confused, crying, don't belong here, and just want to go home, back to my simple, uncomplicated, easy life. Answer the pager! Besides, my surgeon needs to be concentrating on my lymph node biopsy at this very moment, not wondering who else needs him right now. I need him to pay attention to ME! The nurse takes five seconds to answer the page - no emergency. Excellent. Finally, back to me!

Why am I here on this operating table anyway with a surgeon digging out a lymph node from the left side of my neck? What am I supposed to be thinking about? How could I possibly have cancer? Why me? Other people get cancer, not me. I'm only 29 years old - OK 40 or 41, but who's counting. I'm clean and healthy - I exercise regularly, am not overweight, don't smoke, don't drink much, don't have allergies, and don't take medication. I eat right (a little chocolate everyday IS good for you), take a daily multivitamin for women with iron, calcium, zinc and folic acid, and drink plenty of fluids (Diet Coke counts). I keep my things clean and in order - my condo, car, clothes, office. I am optimistic, almost always positive and smiling, and am usually quite content and happy. I believe in God, the author and creator of health and life, serving and supporting others, and being a generally helpful member of society. Cancer should not strike good-hearted, well-meaning adults, children or animals. Right?

So, I'm confused. What causes cancer? How did I get cancer? Do I seriously have it? Is it something I did? Something I consumed? Something nasty I sat on? Something that was passed on to me genetically? Stress? My doctor said he just doesn't know. The nurses say they don't know. I don't know what to think. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel. I don't know what to expect. I don't know what is going to happen. Turns out I don't know diddly. I do know that I'm lost in a sea of unknowns and scared to death, which makes me feel sad and alone, brings tears to my eyes and the only outlet I have - I cry. But as I lay here only able to think and cry about it, all of a sudden a storm blew up (as my sister and I are fond of saying), and I realize that I do know how I was stricken with this disease. My cancer was caused by an accumulation of all things evil that have happened in my lifetime. While trying to live a good, clean, wholesome life, evil kept sneaking in over the years and has developed into a malignant tumor. I'm sure of it. And if you look it up, the synonyms for "malignant" include evil, hateful, spiteful, wicked, nasty, cruel, mean and malevolent. Is it a coincidence that the last word starts with "male?" Hmm … let me think about that!

It hasn't always been easy for me to accept. Nor is it any easier for me to admit, especially to you. But I have definitely learned that despite what they say, ignorance is not bliss. No. It is not blissful to be white, young, twenty-one, at the bar on the rez, listening to hip hop pour out of the juke box and watching adults get up to dance, feeling a little emboldened just by being there with a Miller Lite in my hand and you, my friend since before kindergarten, half-Italian, half-Indian, sitting next to me, a little more emboldened by the two bottles of beer I've already emptied and pushed to the middle of the wobbly tan table, so emboldened even that as I watch the people dance I lean over to you and casually joke that while Indians might like to listen to black music, they sure can't dance like black people.

You! Andrea! Powwow dancer since you could walk, named Indian princess at eleven, the most beautiful dancer I've ever been lucky enough to know, not only as you make your way around the powwow circle with your long dark hair braided and wrapped in leather and your rainbow shawl stretched taut across your back and arms, like gliding wings, but even while doing the tootsie roll and the electric slide and the stupid macarena at junior high school dances. Even earlier tonight when I was riding with you in your car and a good song came on the radio and you turned it up and sang along and swung your head and arms and shoulders to the music as you drove. It isn't easy to attempt to tell a joke and instead tell a lie, but at least I can trust that you will never let me forget the difference, that you will give me the cold stare I deserve, pick up your drink and walk to the other end of the bar, leaving me to figure it out on my own, to tear at the blue and silver label on my wet brown bottle of beer, to look back out at the adults on the dance floor, to really look this time, to see how they laugh and hold each other up and sing along with the lyrics, to realize that they are more beautiful dancing than I will ever be telling lies.

I was sixteen and really still a girl and you were twenty-one and really just a woman and because of this difference in age you always felt guilty and I always felt inept. Those first few times were my firsts of anything and replayed over and over in my head while those first few times were your regrets. Times, you told me years later, that you preferred to forget. Even though I had just gotten my license, I always made you drive, and as you watched the rode, I watched your fingers as they slipped into the notches of the steering wheel and gripped the knob of the stick shift. Because your hands were all I knew I thought they were perfect, but years later I would wonder how perfect it can really be to have your first love feel she has sinned every time she touches you. Because I was still a girl and you were just a woman, and you had done this many times before, and I had never done this before, the only moves I ever made were waiting glances. Because you always felt guilty, you would first down the last of your drink in one gulp, or pull an extra long drag from your cigarette, or breathe in deep like you were about to dive into a cold lake. Because I always felt inept, my whole body would stiffen when you then reached a hand across my knee just as quickly as you had tipped your drink back, or flicked away your cigarette, or dove under the water. And maybe it's because it replayed over and over in my head and you chose to forget that I am able to remember this action so completely: how you took me, like it was a sin.

I don't understand you
The parts I know of you
But I do love all of you
Banana Leaf, Pandan, Fish Ball soup soul of you
You drive me crazy with all of you
Your swirled batik and denim life
Your shamed face and Western stride
Your kiss that tastes like curry, but also like ice cream
You make me scream into the soul of you
When you can't find your home
Because there isn't one
And I know that somewhere in the coming and going and going and coming
The wind stole your passport and now you belong precisely nowhere
But when I feel the pleasure of your hips
Pounding out the intercontinental rhythm that is you
My Raja from a different shore,
I know that you are mine and I am yours
And while I know it will not be enough,
I offer my heart as a substitute land
A safe place that you can come and spill all of you
And someday we will be free
Not here nor there or anywhere but yet somewhere
In the air in another place
Where we can just be
Love

Miscarriages are a bloody mess
And I don't just mean physically
I mean inside of me
Loosened bloody emotional tissue floats free
In a sea, of grief
Over you
The true love of this story

And I can't seem to recover
My strength
It left with you
I didn't know I would loose
So much of me too
When you poured away
No longer able to stay
In a place where I had sway
Over us

And now it's gone
And I'm alone
With out someone
I never really had
And a generic "sad"
Seems to be the only descriptor
Of the chopped down tree in me
Barron Stump
Bumping into the emotional lumps
That didn't bleed out with
The speed of you

How long does it take
A child to change your life?
Make you wild and crazed
Where once you were demure and well glazed
With plans and pleasantries
I will tell you
It takes a second
Maybe half a moment
And you are not the same
Even if you never got to the
Birth certificate name

Because we don't name our children
They name us
In a sort of backward lineage
In which they christen us with
Water and birth's blood
And in every wait that makes
It clear, that they
Are the old souls here
And we, just lucky
Vessels to have carried them.

I could have gone another way
Which would have resulted in an entirely different version of myself
When in fact I rather like this one

I could have gone down to the alter today
Instead I sit sinful
Drinking my cabernet
Or is it communion wine?

I could have witnessed to you today
Told you the truth
Saved us both for eternity
Instead I choose to write these lines
Cry a few times
And accomplish just the same thing

I could have prayed for you today
Lifted you up to the Lord
Beseeching the Divine to bless you
Instead I tasted your kiss
Rolling into you with my hips
Until we were nothing but together
After this, I do believe you have been sanctified

I could have studied the Scriptures today
Exegesis of Hebrew and Greek
Find the meaning and become spiritually meek
Instead I spoke to a friend
Who taught me something of living

I could have lifted my hands today
Joyfully singing a praise
Chorus followed by a hymn
Instead I danced and spun
Round the kitchen with my son
While we laughed into each other's skin

Thank-you for offering religion my friend
Blessings to you if that be your end
But I'll pass
I think God found me anyway

The first time I heard about the tree in the forest
I was in eighth grade music class.
Short, plump, goateed Mr. Porter

drew a giant ear, a felled trunk and said
There is no sound unless I'm there to hear it,
then paused so we could write that in our notebooks.

Andy Schecter wrote How the hell can he know?
tore out the page and passed it around.
Poor Mr. Porter, overmatched by 13 year olds

who use not arguments but infallible
bull shit detectors, on tilt since the day
he read from his unfinished dissertation

on The Beatles, stopping for us to copy
his words verbatim. Down the hall
Mr. Stetbacher told his Social Studies class

there were only three races of people—
Caucasian, African, and "Mongoloid"—
which made the two Puerto Ricans in the school

feel even more left out. It was hard to tell
Stetbacher's race—his face looked white
but his afro was big and tight enough

to catch pencils. To us he was more fat
than anything. Mr. Louisides was Palestinian,
whatever that was. Never take a job

off the books—his advice, repeated daily,
was all we could hear through his accent.
I can't recall what subject he taught,

neither could he, but it's hard to dislike
a man who sings "Pennies from Heaven"
as he enters the room every day drunk on life.

Miss Bix, the new health teacher all the boys
and even some of the girls wanted to bone,
tried desperately and unsuccessfully to get us

to believe rape had nothing to do with sex.
I'm thankful for these dedicated teachers,
men and women who forced us to reach

our own conclusions, theirs being so asinine,
fostering self-trust so we could tackle
the important questions of our age:

whether Rebecca Flanagan had hairy armpits,
if the redhead on the Aviance perfume commercial
was really Mike Burton's mom, and why

Pete Falciano who could bench the universal
showed up each Monday with new bruises—
questions you couldn't find answers to in any book.

As for Mr. Porter, he went on to complete
his research on the overrated rock group,
put a Dr. in front his name and put that name

at the top of a column he penned for the local gazette,
sharing truths only he and Kahlil Gibran
seemed to possess, such as how the Vietnam War

spawned a new generation of homosexuals
by depriving boys of their fathers.
He called the column "Wisdom's Passing"

and it certainly was, long before Reagan
said Facts are stupid things, before Clinton
didn't inhale, and before everyone declared

a War on Terror—as if you could
bomb an idea any more than you can
silence a falling forest with a theory.

BEAUTY

I hear the wind swish

I hear the crows weaving nests as they go 'caw', 'caw'

I hear a hawk swoop up and down and

catch its mouse,

then give out its shrill call to its mate

to tell it, 'I found my dinner. Now you find yours'

I see and smell Caribou Moss

I hear a cricket. It's calling its family.

This is my listening place

  
QUIET

I see a cat prowling.

I see and hear a Toucan with its colorful beak.

I see a little hornbill.

I hear one Bird of Paradise.

I see another one.

I see the towering necks of family's of grapes.

I hear and see a family of bamboos.

They have such vivid colors.

It is so quiet here.

Shoo!

See.

In St Peter's Square,

we were animal-sad-
a cliché of accordions

We kept hearing
lux aeterna

murmured
over the tops of heads
on the Piazza

At first
we would not
believe

	& though inspired as a crucifix
	intense as a field
	certain as any marble step

we would not
believe again

Sleeping in the Cathedral

Here is a line of salt
& a line of water
& another line that says

Pick one of these; a battle cannot ensue while they remain uncrossed

Sleeping in the cathedral
there is a stretch that waits
in the arm of my sleeping body

& I turn in my sleep
where I worry often
& not well. I prepare

for the last minute of silence
I wish the whole universe
would observe.

There are several saints
who are a bitter
disappointment.

Under my feet
anything that is meant to be
can be broken.

This is not the view from St Paul's- 

please forgive me 	then forgive yourself.

Oh this wide world is tacky-all I ever wanted
was peace & a little shut-eye-

& when I saw my opportunity for crossing over
I took it: I'd rather be a river than anything else.

I overheard a bit of conversation-something
I wanted to wedge into a letter-

but in my distraction to get coffee, I muddled it.

In these United States it is night now: a united state
of nights. This is not the view I wanted-

please forgive me	then forgive yourself.

For Ruth, in Kansas

You are nothing but remembered now-

the unhinged persistence
of your smile-
the other side of a hill
in the unabridged distance
of familiar statute mile-

felt in every step of walk, felt in the late corn with crow

& rosaries of husks that damp the sounded field
where the workers work, where the yield is was

& you, still pointing out the next good look:
you, still leafing: the same book of buds.

It’s holiday time. Like misery, the holidays love company. The holidays are coming. The holidays are coming and the holidays hate you. The holidays are house guests from hell, arriving early and staying late, drinking up all your good booze and leaving their wet towels on the floor. They’re going to make a lot of work for you, and they aren’t going to help you clean up. Let’s face it: the holidays are trouble.

Every year you see them coming, and you hope that this year will be different. You try to prepare but every year the holidays show up earlier and earlier, ignoring that look on your face, saying they don’t CARE that you don’t have the decorations up or the beds made, they’ll make themselves comfortable any old where.

Protest all you want to; they aren’t going anyplace. There is no such thing as bad attention, as far as the holidays are concerned. This makes them the worst kind of publicity hounds, ones who will endorse any damned thing as long as it gets them on TV. Months before they actually arrive at your home, you are embarrassed to run into the holidays on street corners and on the radio, singing and exhorting the people to every kind of excess. “Not this year,” you think. “This year, goddamn it, I will not let those assholes into my house” and every year when you are busy doing something else, the doorbell rings and there they are on your doorstep and you’re so surprised that you step back and they barge right in before you have time to come to your senses and stop them.

Traveling light is not an option for the holidays; they arrive laden with baggage. They always say their going to bring the cheer, but do they? They breeze in, kissing everyone on both cheeks, making a big show, empty handed. Everyone must be on hand for the festivities or the holidays aren’t satisfied. The holidays require that large groups of disparate and often conflicting personalities be on hand to meet them. They don’t seem to notice that some of the people in the room aren’t speaking to one another, or that some address others in tones vaguely or even distinctly hostile. The holidays are just thrilled that everyone is gathered for their sake, even if such gathering ends in chaos and shouting and occasionally bloodshed.

They make your sister-in-law so uncomfortable that she gets plastered almost as soon as they arrive. They make a point of mentioning your mother, and what a shame it is that she is no longer around to see them, making everybody cry. The holidays get the kids all whipped up, tickling them too much, sneaking them candy and sips of punch, leaving a trail of tiny hysterics in their glittering wake.

There is something a little creepy about the holidays, have you noticed? There’s this fetishistic love of Victoriana, for one thing. I mean, what’s with all the candles? It’s dangerous. I’ve never been to the holidays’ house (never been invited it you want to know the truth) but I imagine it to be a place completely devoid of electricity, bathed in candlelight, which burns down every couple of years.

Then there’s the music! The holidays’ taste in music borders on the bizarre. It’s obsessive; they can listen to any number of renditions of the same 10 songs over and over again. For some reason they aren’t content until everyone is singing along, repeating lyrics the meaning of which is obscure, sometimes in foreign or even dead languages. Their penchant for children’s choirs is down right sinister.

The two topics of conversation that persons of good breeding never broach in polite company are the two things the holidays love most: politics and religion. Regardless of their official faith, the holidays are true disciples of the paranormal. They’ll believe in anything, so long as it is even remotely magical or mystical. They believe in a flying baby who spreads love with a bow and arrow; they believe in magically refilling oil lamps; they believe in the 8-hour work day and a minimum wage. Spirits of the dead walk the earth; rabbits lay eggs; elves in the arctic make toys for children all over the world – the holidays will swallow anything, apparently. Fairies, pilgrims, leprechauns, lamb’s blood, a whole menagerie of animals with superpowers. It’s disturbing the way they’ll anthropomorphize any inanimate – pumpkins, nutcrackers, presidents. They’re boorish history buffs, and will endlessly recount stories of famous victories and defeats, the founding or destruction of nations.

Sticklers for tradition, the holidays demand that things being done a certain way. They insist that your home be festooned in decorations that - let’s be honest - at any other time of year would be considered tacky. The holidays like bling: sparkly things, things that explode, pulsating lights, bunting, banners, balloons. They can render a normally harmless object a thing of horror by animating it, making it revolve or play music or talk. The holidays wear garish color combinations that are best seen only from a great distance on, say, the flag of a developing nation. You may be tired of the same old flash and glitter year after year, but everyone, anxious that there be no trouble in the house, begs you to drag out the dusty box of decorations and put them up or the holidays won’t be the same and then god knows what kind of fuss they, the holidays, will kick up. So you go with the devil you know and tart up the place like a cheap whore.

The holidays like to have things their way, but will they step up and do the work themselves? They will not. Tyrants without subtlety or discernment, they boss everyone around and don’t care who they impose upon. Especially cruel to women, they employ subtle put downs coupled with impossibly high standards designed to increase the work load while at the same time offering no real rewards. They will only eat certain foods, and they must be the same foods, prepared the same way, every year. “Sit down, sit down and eat! You work too hard!” cry the holidays, before you’ve even gone shopping for the ingredients to the only meal they will eat. This is immediately followed up with something like “What? No yam venison soufflé this year? Oh, pooh, you know it’s my favorite dish!” And an offer to go with you to the grocery store to make sure you get the right kind of yams.

Run into the holidays at a party and you’ll find yourself trapped in a corner, the holidays standing way too close to you, speaking much too animatedly, breathing up all your air. It’s a good idea to hide the liquor before the holidays arrive, for they are sloppy, maudlin drunks. Lots of “I love you guys, I really do,” as something sticky and sweet sloshes from their glass into your cleavage. They cannot be avoided or evaded or turned away. They cannot be insulted – try it sometime. “I hate the holidays” – say it right to their face. They just laugh and hug you too hard.

In fact, tell other people that you hate the holidays and 9 times out of 10 they’ll try to talk you out of it. Of course, some people love the holidays, just as some people re-enact civil war battles for fun. There’s no accounting for it. A break in the routine, I suppose. The holidays do take you out of your everyday for a while. But just when you’re getting used to having them around, getting used to the noise and the smell of them, you wake up one morning and the house is quiet. No clattering in the kitchen, no music, no tinkling of bells. You feel a chill draft coming from somewhere and so you get up and go close the front door, left wide open by the holidays in their flight. And even as you stand there, barefoot and bleary-eyed, surveying the mess they’ve left behind, you start to miss them a little bit. The fuckers.